Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Gleeful Shenanigans

The Fox show Glee is now ripping off independent artists; they've stolen Jonathan Coulton's cover of "Baby Got Back":

Well, they aired it, seemingly unchanged. And it’s now for sale in the US iTunes store. They also got in touch with my peeps to basically say that they’re within their legal rights to do this, and that I should be happy for the exposure (even though they do not credit me, and have not even publicly acknowledged that it’s my version – so you know, it’s kind of SECRET exposure). While they appear not to be legally obligated to do any of these things, they did not apologize, offer to credit me, or offer to pay me, and indicated that this was their general policy in regards to covers of covers.

Admittedly it's not an original song, just an arrangement, and because of this Fox may indeed not owe actual money to Coulton; but it was his arrangement, and using it without even crediting the originator (which wouldn't have been difficult and wouldn't have put them out anything) is pretty sleazy.

Of course, Coulton responded by doing a cover of Glee's cover of his cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's original; that is, he did his original cover again under the same license and is donating the proceeds to charity.